According to the World Health Organization, “Universal Health Coverage means that all people have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship.” This is what we do at Integrate Health. Our mission is to make quality primary healthcare accessible for all. We exist to prove that a better standard of healthcare is possible. We think that health for all will remain an aspiration until the hardest-to-reach communities are included in the solution. And so we work to ensure that the Government of Togo can meet its own goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage.
Yet, for over half of the world’s population, 3.8 billion people, this is out of reach and this shortage has deadly consequences. Céline Natta, a Togolese mother whose child was cared for by a Community Health Worker, tells is better.
“My two-year-old daughter was burning with a fever. I couldn’t get to the health center because I had just given birth and was very tired. I had no idea what to do. That day, an Integrate Health-supported Community Health Worker came to our house during her home visits. I immediately told her about my child. She checked on him and gave him the necessary medication. That afternoon, my child felt much better, and his fever disappeared. I now feel more relieved because I know there is someone in my community, close to home, who can provide care and all the necessary medications to treat my children.”
Globally, 15,000 children under age five and 910 women die each day from preventable causes. In Togo, one in fifteen children die before their fifth birthday. The maternal mortality rate is fourteen times higher than in high-income countries.
However, we have the solution. Integrate Health has developed a replicable primary healthcare delivery system that works. Each of its components operates to remove a barrier to lifesaving care. By integrating professional Community Health Workers with improved care in public sector health centers, this approach creates a patient-centered health system that is accountable to the community and dramatically reduces mortality in severely resource-limited settings.
Integration is the path to achieving health for all and this is a pivotal moment. Togo is on the brink of making dramatic advances toward ensuring quality primary healthcare for all eight million Togolese. Our role is to help them get there.